Since 2014, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has required most Americans to have health insurance. People who don’t comply have to pay a penalty, the amount of which depends on several factors, including income and family size. This calculator lets you estimate the potential ACA penalty for individuals and
married couples who don’t have health insurance coverage required by the ACA.

Estimated Tax Penalty

Calculating the Penalty

In each year, the penalty is capped based on the national average premium for bronze level insurance plans for single individuals and the number of people in the insurance unit.Specifically, the cap equals that average premium times the number of people up to a maximum of five.
The average bronze plan premiums for 2014 and 2015 and the projected premium
for 2016 are: 2014: $2,448
2015: $2,484
2016: $2,676
For an explanation of how the average bronze plan premiums were calculated see:
2015: IRS Internal Revenue Bulletin: 2015-15.
2014: IRS Internal Revenue Bulletin: 2014-33.

Acknowledgements

This calculator was created by Hang Nguyen and Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center with programming assistance from Jessica Kelly of the Urban Institute. Linda Blumberg, Matthew Buettgens, John Holahan, Genevieve Kenney, and Stephen Zuckerman of the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center and many Tax Policy Center analysts provided helpful comments and suggestions.